Starship Development Accelerates Toward Lunar Missions
SpaceX Advances Major Milestones for NASA’s Artemis Program
SpaceX is rapidly expanding its Starship program as it targets crewed lunar missions under NASA’s Artemis program. The company’s latest update outlines major milestones, from advanced flight testing to new infrastructure and life-support system demonstrations.
The Starship vehicle, designed for deep-space travel and lunar landings, has a pressurized habitable volume of more than 21,000 cubic feet—about two-thirds the volume of the International Space Station. Each of its two airlocks has roughly 460 cubic feet of space, more than double the Apollo lander’s capacity. Cargo versions can deliver up to 220,000 pounds directly onto the Moon, supporting payloads such as rovers, reactors, and habitats.
SpaceX’s development follows two paths: the core Starship system and the Human Landing System (HLS) configuration for NASA. The company covers over 90 percent of costs through self-funding, with NASA paying fixed-price milestones only after successful completion. This structure shields taxpayers from overruns while maintaining transparency through shared flight data.
Since Starship’s first flight in April 2023, SpaceX has conducted 11 stand-alone and 11 integrated launches of the vehicle with its Super Heavy booster. The company has manufactured more than three dozen Starships and 600 Raptor engines, accumulating over 226,000 seconds of engine run time. Notably, recent tests demonstrated in-space propellant transfer, Raptor engine restarts, and controlled atmospheric reentries—key steps toward lunar readiness.
Parallel HLS efforts have yielded 49 completed milestones, including cabin life support test campaigns using a full-scale pressurized module, a docking system qualification compatible with NASA’s Orion spacecraft, and a lunar landing thruster test. Structural and environmental evaluations have verified Starship’s durability against micrometeoroids and thermal stress. Additional demonstrations have confirmed the performance of navigation radars, medical systems, and crew transfer elevators designed for lunar surface operations.
Upcoming objectives include ship-to-ship propellant transfer and long-duration orbital flight tests, both targeted for 2026. These missions will validate Starship’s capacity to refuel in space and sustain extended lunar voyages. The new Starship V3 design, equipped with advanced docking ports and DragonEye navigation sensors, will support these operations.
NASA first selected Starship in 2021 as the Artemis III lunar lander and expanded the partnership for Artemis IV. Both missions aim to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon—an essential step toward eventual Mars expeditions.
SpaceX continues developing full-scale facilities across Texas, Florida, and California to support high-cadence Starship launches. The company’s investments—totaling billions of dollars—have created more than five million square feet of production and test space and five active launch pads across the Gulf Coast states.
As SpaceX refines its flight architecture in concert with NASA, the goal remains clear: enable a permanent American return to the Moon before any other nation and extend humanity’s reach to other worlds.